Most conventional detergent compositions contain mixtures of various detersive surfactant components. Commonly encountered surfactant components include various anionic surfactants, especially the alkyl benzene sulfonates, alkyl sulfates, alkyl alkoxy sulfates and various nonionic surfactants, such as alkyl ethoxylates and alkylphenol ethoxylates. Surfactants have found use as detergent components capable of the removal of a wide variety of soils and stains. A consistent effort however is made by detergent manufacturers to improve detersive properties of detergent compositions by providing new and improved surfactants.
A problem commonly associated with anionic surfactants is their sensitivity to cold water and/or hard water. It is the surprising finding of the present invention that in comparison to known anionic surfactant components, the mid-chain branched surfactants utilized herein provide improved cleaning performance, especially for granular detergent compositions to be used under colder wash water conditions and/or in hard water. The cleaning results obtained by using these mid-chain branched surfactants in combination with bleaching agents are particularly desirable.
An advantage of the present invention is the improved cleaning performance, over a wide variety of soils and stains, of the detergent composition formulated with the mid-chain branched surfactants.